Labels on some popular grocery store pizza, pasta and other tomato sauces aren’t always what they seem. Consumer groups are onto this Food Identity Theft deception, and news outlets are reporting the scam. These suspicious products mislead consumers with claims like “Made from California Vine-ripened Tomatoes” implying they are made from fresh tomatoes.

But in fact the products are made using reconstituted industrial tomato concentrate–tomato paste and added water. Tomato sauce remanufactured from concentrate is a highly processed food that’s cheaper to make and more profitable for companies who are trying to pass off the stuff as the real thing.

Culprits include some of the biggest names in the industry including Del Monte, Contadina, and Classico. Read more… »

Dietary supplements are big business. In the U.S., sales totaled nearly $37 billion in 2014. According to estimates by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), more than one-third of all Americans take some form of dietary supplement in any given month.

Among seniors over the age of 71, 48 percent of women and 43 percent of men use them. Other estimates place the number of supplement users in the U.S. as high as 69 percent.

Vitamins, minerals and herbal supplements have a tremendously safe track record, yet they are often singled out as being potentially dangerous by government agencies like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and others.

For many years now, an organized campaign has been waged against supplements, with the aim of regulating them as drugs rather than food, as is currently the case. Canadian Broadcast News (CBC) News, The New York Times, and PBS/Frontline all appear to be part of this campaign.

If you thought PBS was above such shenanigans, think again. If you’ve been a regular viewer of PBS, you’ve likely noticed the increase in sponsored messages over the last few years, and among these “underwriters,” as they’re now called, you have Monsanto, Pfizer, and Merck, just to name a few.

If you have ever supported PBS in the past I would hope you seriously reconsider and refrain from donating any money to an organization that has clearly demonstrated they are nothing more than an industry shill and could care less about your health.Read more… »

By BILL BONVIE A new study has concluded that a “novel, effective, and human safe approach for insect pest control” might be in the offing. And that should sound like good news.

But what might make it seem somewhat less so – even perhaps a bit disturbing – is the fact that a lot of us are already ingesting this supposedly ”safe” alternative pesticide. And not as a residue, either, but in the form of a no-cal sweetener – one we sprinkle on foods and beverages and can find already added to juice and other items by food manufacturers. Read more… »

Majority of Fast Food Restaurants Get Fail Rating in Antibiotics Meat Report – Antibiotic resistance has been declared “an increasingly serious threat to global public health that requires action across all government sectors and society” by the World Health Organization (WHO).

The cause for this growing drug resistance was once thought to be restricted to overuse of antibiotics in medicine, but it’s become quite clear that our food supply significantly contributes to the problem.

In fact, it may even be the overriding factor that has allowed, and continues to allow, resistance to grow and spread at the rate that it is.

In the US, animals raised in confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are routinely fed low doses of antibiotics to make them grow fatter, faster, and to prevent disease associated with crowded and unsanitary living conditions.

The US uses nearly 30 million pounds of antibiotics each year to raise food animals. This accounts for about 80 percent of all antibiotics used in the US, and nearly 70 percent Read more… »

Research shows that the food you eat can have a profound effect on your mental health. So, regardless of your mental health problem, the importance of addressing your diet simply cannot be overstated.

In a very real sense, you have two brains — one in your head, and one in your gut. Both are created from the same tissue during fetal development, and they’re connected via your vagus nerve, the tenth cranial nerve that runs from your brain stem to your abdomen. Read more… »

What if you found out the safe levels for blood pressure and cholesterol, obesity, eating fruits and vegetables, and even drinking alcohol were all made up – and without any firm evidence? Don’t miss this eye-opening expose. You’ll never view “research” the same…

There’s so much confusion regarding health information in the media. How do you determine which advice to follow and what to take with a grain of salt? Dr. Malcolm Kendrick wrote the book Doctoring Data: How to Sort Out Medical Advice from Medical Nonsense to help you answer that question.

His fabulous book will teach you how to identify common research flaws and help you sift through misleading and meaningless data. An important resource if you are a serious student of health. Read more… »

The Buteyko method is named after its founder Doctor Konstantin Buteyko. It is the most effective drug-free approach for the management of asthma and other breathing related problems. It can be practiced by both adults and children, and gives quick and consistent results.

The Buteyko method is neither a medical treatment nor procedure. It does not involve any medication, homeopathy or herbs. It is series of lectures related to breathing which enables people to understand a concept of ‘normal breathing’ or breathing according to physiological norms. It contains simple breathing techniques and logical instructions to follow. It also gives the means of controlling breathing parameters without any technical appliances. Buteyko method brings the physiological parameters of the body to the norm. It can be easily incorporated into the daily life of any contemporary person. It does not require you to interrupt your everyday activities to perform any sophisticated procedures similar to yogi’s ‘asana’. You can use the concept of the method at any time in any situation. Read more… »

When you’re looking for expert advice on what and what not to eat and drink, who ya gonna ask?

Why a registered dietitian, of course! After all, who can you trust for an authoritative and impartial answer about whether or not something is good for you if not a trained, credentialed and certified professional in that very field?

Or so goes the conventional wisdom, in any case. The reality, however, is often not quite so simple and legit, as this blog has revealed on a number of occasions.

Oral Enzyme Therapy combines various proteases (protein dissolving enzymes) in order to prevent disease, assist the body to fight various cancers, and lessen the negative effects of chemotherapy and radiation. The proteolytic enzymes papain and chymopapain are found naturally in the papaya leaf.

“PEs (proteolytic enzymes) are thought to exert immunomodulatory effects by causing increased release of reactive oxygen species by polymorphonuclear leukocytes or by production of tumor necrosis factor-alpha and interleukins IL-6 and IL-1B that cause cytotoxic effects. Read more… »

Top 10 Articles of 2014 from Mercola.com. These are the articles that captivated you most, and they cover a wide variety of health topics, from how increase your testosterone levels without hormones, exposés on top nutritional myths and the “best and worst” foods on the market, and much more.

There is something unsettling and (literally) unnatural about an ice cream sandwich that doesn’t melt on a hot summer day. Earlier this summer, a woman in Cincinnati noticed that her son’s Walmart-brand ice cream sandwich didn’t melt when he accidently left it outside for 12 hours, in 80-degree F weather.Read more… »

Those who bother to delve into the science behind water fluoridation will inevitably come to see that there’s an abysmal lack of evidence supporting this routine practice, and an awful lot of evidence stacked against it. Water fluoridation began in 1945. Today, the United States adds fluoride to more than two-thirds of the municipal water supplies reaching nearly 211 million Americans. As of 2012, more than 67 percent of Americans receive fluoridated water, up from 66 percent in 2010. Of those, more than 11 million people receive fluoride at or above what has been deemed the “optimal” level, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Most likely, your dentist—along with countless government and public health officials—has praised and promoted the use of fluoride, both in toothpaste and drinking water, calling it a “necessary” part of your oral health regimen. But let’s make this point clear: fluoride is not an essential nutrient needed for your health—dental or otherwise. There is not one single metabolic process in your body that requires fluoride. On the contrary, fluoride is a cumulative poison. Read more… »

The aroma of winter is wood smoke and evergreen. But winter holidays smell spicy. Herbs that grow only in the tropics – such as cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, mace, cardamom, allspice, and vanilla – are called spices. Their aromatic oils and volatile esters entice us with delicious smells and mouth-watering tastes. And spices warm us from the inside, as if we had ingested the tropical sun on a cold day. Spices help preserve food and counter a variety of illnesses, too. Come, sit and warm your feet by the fire. Close your eyes and imagine the dense green forests where aromatic spices grow.Read more… »

By Linda Bonvie
A new number has just been released by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that should set off flashing red, yellow and blue warning lights for food shoppers throughout the land.

The FDA now estimates that at least 96 percent of children aged 2-5 years are being exposed to at least four artificial colors in food products – FD&C Red 40, Yellow 5, Yellow 6 and Blue 1.

What that means is that the great majority of America’s kids –especially those of preschool and kindergarten age — are now being fed foods that are tainted by virtue of being painted.

Perhaps you never thought of the use of synthetic food dyes in quite that way. But to “taint” can be defined as “to modify by or as by a trace of something offensive or deleterious.” In other words, to add a very small amount of a substance that can be harmful or “injurious to health.”

And that’s how many experts now view the artificial hues that are used to “pretty up” so many processed foods by making these nutrient-deficient products appear more colorful. Read more… »

Story at-a-glance

The documentary Consuming Kids reveals the shrewd practices of the multi-billion dollar marketing machine designed to turn your kids into loyal, lifelong consumers who will also influence how the entire family spends its money

Children age two to 11 now see an average of more than 10 television food ads per day. Ninety-eight percent of food advertisements viewed by children are for products that are high in fat, sugar, or sodium. Most are also low in fiber

A UN official recently warned that obesity is a bigger global health threat than tobacco use, and that this fact isn’t taken as seriously as it should be

Story at-a-glance

About 80 percent of genetically engineered plants grown in the US end up as animal feed, and approximately 40 percent of all corn grown is used for making ethanol for fuel—not food

92.5 percent of US acreage is devoted to animals or food for animals. Only 7.5 percent of our acreage is devoted to food that goes directly to feeding humans

Avoiding factory-farmed meat and animal products, as well as genetically engineered processed foods, is one of the best ways you can affect positive environmental change

Americans spend less than seven percent of their income on food, averaging at $151 per week. But the fact that food can be had for cheap does NOT mean that it’s actually the most cost-efficient choice

When you buy organic food, you pay for it once. Non-organic foods are associated with at least four additional hidden costs, including cost of health care for food-induced disease, and environmental cleanup

If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you probably already know a little about how diet soda (whatever brand it might be) can be considered the opposite of ‘brain food’. Or, to be more specific, how the synthetic sweetener it almost always contains — aspartame – is capable of literally exciting brain cells to death, especially when ingested by children or the elderly whose blood-brain barrier may not be fully functional. Read more… »

Dr Sanath Hettige Sees Urgency in Promoting the Healing Effects of Papaya Leaf Tea. “a delay in formal research and publication may result in many deaths if we were to wait for results of a study without making information available to patients during the present epidemic.” – Dr Sanath Hettige

Papaya leaf extract – wonder drug for dengue patients?
By C.I. Munasinghe
While the dreaded disease, dengue has reached epidemic proportions with a countless number of patients infected by it islandwide and the death toll mounting unabated, creating a national crisis – a cure for this dreaded disease however is still in wanting.

Dr. Sanath Hettige, an MBBS doctor – a consultant family physician – has affirmed that papaya leaf extract has definite beneficial effects on dengue patients. It prevents dengue patients from going in to dengue haemorrhagic state, he says.Read more… »

by Srikanth Radhakrishna
Testosterone is a white crystalline steroid hormone secreted by the testes. This androgen (male sex hormone) stimulates the development of male sexual organs. Decreased levels of testosterone can affect sperm count and may increase the risk of medical conditions like dementia, heart problems, depression and osteoporosis.

Men that have low levels of testosterone may become easily tired, unable toRead more… »

While this may look like your typical fast-food nugget, these are made from mycoprotein, a microscopic mold-fungi called Fusarium venenatum.

Is the meatlike mold in Quorn really a ‘healthier’ alternative? Of all the food additives and strange-sounding ingredients readers have asked about at Food Identity Theft, the oddest of all has to be mycoprotein, sold under the brand name Quorn. Mycoprotein is not a mushroom, but a type of microscopic mold-fungi called Fusarium venenatum that is fermented in a giant tank, fed with oxygenated water, glucose and other ingredients, and then further heavily processed into a variety of “food-like” substances such as fake chicken and meat.

If you just look at the Quorn packaging or web site you would think that mycoprotein is the greatest culinary creation since flour from grain, a “natural” meatless way to “eat healthier” that was first discovered in the 1960s during a search for novel sources of protein to feed the world.
But there’s more to the mycoprotein/Quorn story than that.Read more… »

Herbal teas are among the most popular and simplest of home remedies. Brewing your own medicinal teas is one of the most ancient ways of using natural herbal remedies.

Medicinal tea infusions are prepared by steeping flowers, roots, seeds or the leaves of herbs in hot water. These herbal teas are drunk without milk, although a little Stevia may be added to sweeten them. The most effective infusions are made by longer steeping plants such as chamomile flowers and peppermint leaves.Read more… »